Tuesday, December 26, 2006

DOES THE DEMOCRATIC CONGRESS HAVE THE GUTS TO PUT THE GENIE BACK IN THE BOTTLE AND AVOID A COSTLY WAR WITH IRAN? HELP PUT PRESSURE ON CONGRESS TO MAKE THE EXECUTIVE BRANCH KOW-TOW IN 2007!!!!

A few days ago, upon my return to Kuwait from Indonesia, I listened to a great discussion on DEMOCRACY NOW (December 21, 2006 Thursday). This is an extremely important discussion because it asks the basic question of whether the U.S. Congress--which in accordance with the creation and plans of our 19th Century founding forefathers has control over funding the Presidents foreign affairs—in 2007 will finally begin to do its job. In the 21st Century would be a very important opportunity development as American citizens need to see a roll-back of the “blank check” that the 2001-2002 Congress passed after 9-11. This legislation basically allowed George W. Bush (and his boss, Dick Cheney) to invade any country in the name of fighting terrorism—regardless as to what the real facts on the ground are as-related-to-threat actually posed to the U.S.

The discussants on that DN episode were Seymour Hersh and Scott Ritter. Seymour Hersh is the hero of journalism who exposed the Abu Ghraib scandal and numerous other crimes by the government henchmen related to invading Iraq and carrying out media manipulation, esp. by the Cheney-Bush Administration or Fox News network. Scott Ritter is the former American marine and U.S. weapons inspector who spoke out against the false propaganda and reasons for the U.S. invasion of Iraq in Spring 2003.

What follows is a reprint of part of the discussion that warns American citizens of how serious the problem will be if we don’t get the Executive Branch of government behaving sensibly in 2007. (Brackets are mine):

SEYMOUR HERSH: … Let me ask him one more question. One last question, which is, OK, briefly, [imagine] we go to war. We begin a massive bombing campaign. Take your pick. Odds are it’s going to be systematic, at least three days of intense bombing, decapitation probably, which -- that is one of the things you do when you begin a bombing attack, like we did against Saddam twice and like the Israelis did against Hezbollah when they targeted Nasrallah. And I think we and the Israelis are now 0-for-8, almost as bad as Shrummy and his elections. But anyway, so the question then is -- we go to war -- tell us what happens next, in your view.

SCOTT RITTER: Well, it’s, you know -- it’s almost impossible to be 100% correct, but I’ll give you my best analysis. The Iranians will use the weapon that is the most effective weapon, because the key for Iran -- you know, Iran can’t afford, if this -- remember, the regime wants to stay in power, so they can’t afford a strategy that gets the American people to recognize three years in that, oops, we made a mistake. I mean, if that was Saddam’s strategy, it failed for him, because he’s out of power. Yeah, we realize we made a mistake now in Iraq, but the regime is gone. So the Iranians realize that they have to inflict pain upfront. The pain is not going to be inflicted militarily, because we're not going to commit numbers of ground forces on the ground that can cause that pain. The pain will come economically.

Our oil-based economy is operating on the margins, as we speak. We only have 1.0% to 1.5% excess production capacity. If you take the Iranian oil off the market, which is the first thing the Iranians will do, we automatically drop to around minus-4%, which means there ain’t enough oil out there to support the globe’s thirst for oil, especially America’s thirst for oil. And we're not the only ones drinking it? You think for a second the Chinese and the Indians, the world’s two largest developing economies, are going to say, “Hey, Uncle Sam, we’ll put everything on hold, so we can divert oil resources, so you can feed your oil addiction, because you attacked Iran”?

And it’s not just Iranian oil that will go off the market. Why do you think we sent minesweepers up there? We’ve got to keep the Straits of Hormuz open. The Iranians will shut it down that quick. They’ll also shut down oil production in the western oil fields of Saudi Arabia. They’ll shut down Kuwaiti oil production. They’ll shut down oil production in the United Arab Emirates. They’ll shut down whatever remaining oil production there is in Iraq. They’ll launch a massive attack using their Shia proxies in Iraq against American forces.

That will cause bloodshed.

The bottom line is, within two days of our decision to initiate an attack on Iran, every single one of you is going to be feeling the consequences of that in your pocketbook. And it’s only going to get worse. This is not something that only I recognize. Ask Dick Lugar what information he’s getting from big business, who are saying, “We can’t afford to go to war with Iran.”

When asked whether they thought the U.S. executive branch is headed towards a war—a war nobody (not even the Israeli) wants--with Iran in the next 12-month’s or so, both these experts—Ritter and Hersh--agreed that it would appear so. The current administration has not learned a single lesson about what the public desires!

This is to say: Unless either [1] Israeli lobbies in the U.S. persuade the Bush administration to change course or [2] the U.S. Congress withdraws the purse strings for making war on Iran and in other corners of the region.

For this reason, I think it is not too early to get in contact with your Congressmen and tell him or her:

NO MORE ADVENTURISM!NO MORE PREEMPTIVE WARS!WE WON’T PAY ANOTHER DIME FOR BAD GOVERNANCE!

I fear Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and all oil-producing regions near Iran would be adversely effected by any U.S. shooting in the direction of Iraq. In turn, for all other powers on the planet, insecurity is the only likely result of another U.S. misadventure. That is, economic-, social-, and political insecurity will haunt us all for decades if the Executive Branch isn’t brought in line by a Congress finally holding it to account, i.e. stopping its unlimited WAR CHEST.

By some analysts the costs of the Iraq war so far have already reached one trillion dollars and long-term spending will be more than triple that. Congressional analysts say the Iraq War is costing 2 billion dollars a week.

Body counts in Iraq 2003-2006 are in the hundreds of thousands.

Question: What good will expanding the war(s) by the U.S. executive branch be? Answer: NONE

Peruse these and related sites:http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=06/12/21/143259http://antiwar.com/casualties/http://nationalpriorities.org/index.php?option=com_wrapper&Itemid=182http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11880954/http://www.boston.com/news/world/middleeast/articles/2006/09/28/cost_of_iraq_war_nearly_2b_a_week/